I whipped these together while watching the Macy's parade. The food stickers came from a local food bank solicitation, the background is strips of Thanksgiving scrapbooking paper on green faux chipboard.

Because I'm the sort of boring person that always has to do what other people are doing, today I made some inchies (one inch square little art bits). Ali has been making then, with the goal of ten a day for ten days, for mysterious reasons nobody knows yet, but whatever Ali does is cool, so all her fans are making them too.

This are made with black paper painted with glitter glue, then stamped in gold. The stars are punched out of a paper I made with gesso and gold paint. after I assembled them, I stanped "Wish" on them. The finished squares are mounted on layers of mustard cardstock for a chipboard effect.

These angels are packing tape transfers on rose petal paper stamped in gold, then finished with mahogany distressing ink and mounted on burgundy faux chipboard.

I tried really hard to get some character into a card that is basically white snowflakes on a blue background. I used white craft ink with iridescent EP, white craft ink with white EP, then burnished two different shades of blue into the blue cardstock, stamped with white craft ink again, then with versamark for a watermark effect. It's perfect for the Gingersnap Creations monochromatic challenge!

I like dodecahedrons, and I've struggled for years with making them, mostly because I'm too lazy to cut all the pieces out by hand neatly (neatly being the important part). However, it just occurred to me recently that I could make one out of a five-petalled flower from a punch, and it might even make a nice ornament.

I included the punch with this picture, and the blue one next to the punch is my prototype (not so great, eh?). After I made it, I found it it was a lot easier to decorate before assembling the bits. I thought it would be hard to stamp something consistently amazing 12 times, so I decided the best way to go would be to make digital punchable images, and assemble the dodecahedron from there.

This is my finished product, for the Spotlight challenge, and the recently discovered (I keep finding new challenge blogs!) Inky Impressions challenge. I just found Inky Impressions today - they sell the kind of stamps I love to buy, deeply etched rubber with EZ Mount. They are looking for members for their design team right now, too! But, I digress...

I have saved the printable file as a .pdf - it has 24 punchables, enough to make two different dodecahedrons (the other one has different vintage image, I will probably post it later after I assemble it). If you have this punch and would like the file, download it here from Google Docs. If you don't have the punch but don't mind sitting and cutting a lot of pieces with scissors, you can use this file too. It could be a fun project to make with the kids if you are bored after dinner next weekend.

You can make this kind of ornament out of any five-petalled flower or even a star. If you try it, and post it somewhere online, leave me a link - I would love to see it!

My Red Hat lady friends came over today to decorate our hats. I had a glittered red bird and a purple sequined butterfly I wanted to use. Neither of them was particularly cooperative, but this is what I ended up with:

I think they are both a little different from what the other ladies are wearing - that's always a good thing. I think I will get a lot of use out of that headband.

I have a new art purse. I really loved the old one, because it had 8 pockets for ATCs and I could show off all the cards in my collection, a little at a time, but it finally began to lose it's luster. The problem with any purse that depends on vinyl to protect the art is that vinyl stains and discolors after a while. I would have purchased another of the same purse, but the company went out of business.

I was very excited when I saw the The Angel Company sells an art purse. I immediately ordered one, and found myself with very little time to create something seasonally appropriate to put into the two 8x10 inch panels on the sides.

I grabbed some Thanksgiving paper and cut them to size, but it didn't look very exciting. I needed to leave the house in 20 minutes - what could I do? I started looking through my cards and found a set that I had done a few weeks ago at a TAC workshop - what could be more appropriate for a TAC purse than to showcase some TAC cards?

The other side looks the same except it has two different cards. I can't keep the cards in there too long, though - I want to send some of them out for Thanksgiving!

I didn't realize how bad this looks until I scanned it. In the dim light of the basement, sewing with my glasses off, it looked fine. I am incredulous how much worse my book looks compared to everyone else's.

I was stamping at my friend Chris's house, playing making Christmas cards, and I colored this little snowman angel. The Angel Company likes to make angel stamps, go figure (the word "angel" refers to the Terms of Use, not the religious inclinations of the owners). Anyway, after I colored the crown and wings gold (white wings on a white snowman on a white background was a little too much white for me), I realized that there was no gold in any of the papers and accents we were offered to use. I politely asked to start over, but Chris agreed only on the stipulation that I take my golden snowman angel home and make him into a card. I agreed, and this is the card I made at Chris's house.

As you can see, I stayed close to the colors in the papers (Merry Wishes) with this one. I used stickles for the wings, star, and snow - it's a pretty glittery card.

After I got home, I looked through all my Christmas patterned papers, and couldn't find one with bright enough colors that wouldn't overshadow the little snow king. I expanded my search and found a perfect, although unlikely match:

I think it makes a cute card, even if the colors aren't traditional. I wonder if Chris will laugh when she sees this - Frutti Fusion papers are usually thought of as summer papers. The alphas are sequins.

As it happens, Merry Wishes and Frutti Fusion paper packets are both half price right now, along with some of my other favorites. This is a good time to stock up.

I found a little scrap of Silver Lustre paper on my desk, and I couldn't bring myself to toss it. I had this little TAC dove stamp, so I stamped it.

This is colored with LaPlume markers, no blender pen, no aquabrush. the paper dries slowly, so that the the ink doesn't set right away, and you can push it around a little. There are three shades of blue in this background. I started with the medium blue, then went to a dark one to outline the dove, then dragged out the ink with a very light blue marker. The mosaic paper was digitally made by me from my martian landscape image I used a couple days ago, and little bits of silver tie it all together. The silver lustre paper isn't all that silver, it's more of a soft, shiny white. The dove is uncolored, you can see how it is. I love this silver lustre paper, it makes everything look better.

Aly is only 10 years old, so she is very strict when judging her challenge players - they have to do it exactly right to pass. This is what our school system is doing to artists. The little gingerbread boy is a little plastic charm, I bought a bunch of these because they look like fruit jellies to me. However, you can't really use them at any other time of year, I have to take my opportunities when they arise.

This second one uses an old Glitter Edges technique piece I had in my stash (I made about 30 of these backgrounds one afternoon, and I have most of them left). The Truly Scrumptious challenge called for a lot of texture, and this definitely has it. The sequin leaves and epoxy sticker are from Michael's, which gets an unreasonable amount of my crafting dollars, I'm afraid.

I printed a bunch of digital images to color yesterday, and this bunch of roses was one of them. I decided to see how well I could blend from one color to another (not well at all), without thinking about the consequences - how was I going to put yellow roses on pink glimmer cardstock onto a card?

I did find some yellow cardstock for the base, and some dotted paper with pink and yellow and green in it, but after I cut it and all the layers to go with, I decided it was not the right style for the roses. I finally gave up on the yellow, and picked up on the red and pink instead.

This follows the Card Patterns sketch for this week. The Glimmer paper really makes it pop.

However, after I cut all that dotted paper and cardstock, I couldn't just toss it, so I made another card out of it. It's a strange card, but it is usable.

Monday's challenge at 365 Cards was to make a card that could be an ornament. I thought a house card could be cute, and remembered this fun little digital house stamp from Paper Popsicles that I used for Halloween and Thanksgiving - maybe it would be good for Christmas too!

I used my digital skills to enlarge the house and cut away the background, then I flipped the image and attached it at the roof line to make a card that had the image on both sides, a feature I considered essential for an ornament. I've only shown one side here, as I colored them identically. You can see from the scan that I ran a ribbon through the fold to hang it - there is space on the inside for a message. The house is ATC size, as a little something for my swapping bodies.

Things started getting out of hand when I started putting glitter glue along some of the edges, to simulate being decorated with lights. Still I think it is a cute little card, and will happily send it off to a friend.

A lot of you are playing with alcohol markers (copics) now, and needing to buy expensive white paper to print your images, like Neenah and GP coverstock. Anything less tears up or soaks through (or so I've heard - I've only used Silver Lustre for my coloring up until now).

I figured that since I already had nice Glimmer Paper (PaperTemptress), I would try that with my ghetto copics (Bic Mark-its). Although I had white, I wanted to use a colored paper to see how the color would show through the mark-its.

This is so shimmery - really a lot like stained glass. The ink puddled a little on the glimmer paper, almost like a watercolor, but dried fairly quickly. I bet it would be a dream to blend on a larger image - this one is less than two inches across, no room for blending colors.

The layout is from Get Sketchy, downsized and rotated a little. I wanted to make an ATC using the digital background I created yesterday, from a photo of a martian landscape that I found online. I used a blend mode with a gradient to colorize the image, then an enamel filter to increase the depth. Unfortunately, you hardly notice it for all the bling and ribbon and glimmer - it almost seems a waste of a trip to Mars. It's a good thing those good folks at NASA had other things than my artistic needs in mind.

Here is the other ATC Diane sent me (left image), using the packing tape transfer technique. You can see through the transfer to the white hexagon that is in the middle of all these digital kaleidoscope backgrounds that she sent me. This white center is considerably smaller than the white diamonds that were in the middle of the other ones, so I thought at first that I could easily put a focal point on an oval and cover them, but I mysteriously had these red diamonds sitting on my desk, so I put them to use:

The stamp is from TAC (The Renaissance), and the technique is Pencil over Ink. Again, this doesn't hold a candle to Diane's ATC, but what could I do? She only finished one of the cards!

Diane sent me two wonderful ATCs, and a bunch of backgrounds like the ones she used for the ATCs. This seemed like a challenge to me - could I make as nice a card with her background as she did?

Obviously not. (Hers is the one on top) What a humbling experience.

I used the Captured Beads technique from Technique Junkies. The sequins and beads are sandwiched between two sheets of acetate. The window is clear, and the little bit of red that you see through the window is from the backing. Any white you see is from the lid of my scanner.

Here's the million dollar question - if I swap the ATCs I've made, whose name do I put on them, mine or hers? If I put hers, that should teach her a lesson - finish your ATCs before you send them to me, or I will ruin your reputation as an artist!

About Me

I love to make little things like cards and jewelry, because I love to share them. I love blogging about them because I can share them with even more people. If you see something you really like, send me an
email
- if it isn't already promised to someone else, I will probably mail it to you.